(a) If, at any time, after the filing of the petition and before a sale of the property, it should be made to appear to the circuit court that the interests of the various owners could be more fully protected and the value of the various interests of the parties increased by the execution of an oil and gas lease providing for the prospecting and drilling for oil and gas upon the property involved in the suit, or upon property near thereto, the court may appoint a receiver who shall be authorized to enter into negotiations for the leasing of the property for the drilling and operating for oil and gas, and if the receiver finds that the property can be leased upon the terms as, in his or her opinion, are beneficial to the various owners, he or she shall file a petition with the court setting out the results of his or her investigation and shall pray for authority to execute the lease.
(b) If the lease shall provide for the payment of royalty of not less than one-eighth (1/8) of the production and shall otherwise appear to the court to be to the best interest of all the parties to the suit, the court shall order and direct the receiver to execute the lease upon terms the court deems just and proper, and the person taking the lease shall be vested with the leasehold rights therein conveyed as fully and with like effect as if the lease had been executed by all of the owners of the oil and gas rights, and their spouses.
(c) Leases executed by the receiver under the authority of the court, as provided in this section, shall not terminate with the termination of the suit for partition nor with the sale and confirmation of the oil and gas rights, but the leases shall continue in full force and effect according to their own terms and conditions as fully and with like effect as if they had been executed by the various owners and their spouses, and any person thereafter purchasing the oil and gas rights, or any interest therein, either from the owners or from the commissioner of the court selling the rights under the decree of sale and partition, shall take the rights subject to the oil and gas lease so executed by the receiver.
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